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Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality

The following tables offer a ‘thicker ethic’ for discussing
the Bible and homosexuality. Too often,
the focus in popular discourse—and among scholars—is only on texts that directly
address the topic. What the Church’s
authoritative Scriptures say is, of course, at the heart of the matter—and what
they say is perfectly clear. The Old
Testament and New Testament, narrative and legal texts, and sin lists in the
New Testament recognized homosexual practice as sinful. There is ample reference to the sin of
homosexuality in Scripture where God’s people encountered other cultures and
religions (Canaanite, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman) that practiced same-sex acts. However, explicit texts on the topic are only
one part of a Biblical ethic related to homosexuality. Not only is homosexuality a part of a more all-encompassing
Biblical sexual ethic; it is also a part of Biblical ethics in general.

The tables explore the ‘thicker ethic’ of Scripture and
homosexuality in two ways. First, the
columns in the table cover three ways of considering ethics: character,
actions, and ends. The rows in the table
examine the use of Scripture at four levels: concrete ethical guidance, more
general warrants for ethics, Biblical witness for morality, and the Biblical
worldview. The table, therefore,
incorporates different ethical theories without favoring one over the other so
that what the Biblical text says might come into focus. It also incorporates different uses of
Scripture without presuming that a more general ethic of principles is
preferable to a more concrete ethic of moral rules, for example. Again, the Biblical voice is not drowned out by
the presumptions of ethicists or the presuppositions of readers biased by their
own cultures and contexts. The tables
are intended, therefore, as tools to ‘hear’ the voice of Scripture rather than
as a methodology that might skew the results of Biblical, moral enquiry. They are meant to be used for reflection and
argument.

What the tables do not do is focus on questions that must be
discussed beyond what can be represented in this format. They are unable to engage in the exegesis
necessary to understand the meaning of specific texts in their historical and
cultural contexts. They are also unable
to explore fully hermeneutical concerns in Biblical theology and ethics—concerns
related to the unity and diversity of Scripture and the appropriate use of
Scripture by believers in different cultural and temporal contexts. (Consideration of such issues would only
strengthen the case, however.) Yet the
tables are able to flesh out some of the hermeneutical concerns over how we are
using Scripture for ethics, and this is what results in a ‘thicker ethic.’

One final word on this is important: the New Testament
nowhere sets out to challenge Old Testament ethics on issues of sexual morality,
except to hold the Church to higher standards.
Thus, on the matter of a Biblical sexual ethic, concerns about unity and
diversity in Biblical theology and ethics are not as significant as might be
with other moral issues, such as on a question of war or laws pertaining to
Israel’s unique identity (circumcision, food, special days, cultic practices).

Two tables are presented.
Table 1 sets out on a single page the overall categories (in the first
row and first column). Examples of what
might be explored appear in the subsequent columns and rows. So, for example, a concrete character ethic
might explore habits, practices, roles, and social norms (mores,
folkways). Table 2 is broken up so that
the different uses of Scripture appear each on its own page—but it is a single
table. It takes the categories of Table
1 and examines what Scripture says to the issue of homosexuality and related
moral topics, locating the specific narratives and rules in Scripture on this
topic within the larger, Biblical ethic.

Given Western culture’s reductive approach to ethics since
the 18th century (when the goal became to discuss ethics around a
single principle), this sort of exercise in Christian ethics is very
important. Many ethicists from the
Enlightenment onwards—even in our day--have attempted to balance the entire
weight of ethics on a single principle or two.
Immanuel Kant focused ethics on two principles: (1) treat others as
ends, not as means; (2) the right thing to do for one person will be what is
right for everyone to do. Utilitarian
ethicists balanced ethics on the single principle that we should do whatever
will bring the greatest good to the greatest number of people. In the twentieth century, ethicists in the
West struggled to find some guidance within the human experience itself, a
principle. Thus,
existentialists focused ethics on doing what brings self-authentication, and
situation ethicist said that one would simply know the right thing to do when
in the situation itself. The latter
often gravitated toward the single, vague principle of ‘Do the loving thing,’
which gives no guidance of any worth.
Yet, probably the most significant challenge to finding a thicker ethic
by which to live in Western culture comes from the overriding principles of
freedom and equality, understood in terms of autonomous rights rather than as
being allowed to act out of conscience and for the good (however defined).

Christians face the problem of explaining their unique views
in ethics over against an increasingly post-Christian culture in the West. Grounding ethics for a community in
authoritative teachings in a book, the Bible, and in the authoritative witness
of the community over centuries, Christian tradition, sets the Church over
against the culture on many moral issues, especially against the ethic of
freedom from Christian norms in matters of sexual behaviour. Wherever Churches revise their long-held
beliefs on homosexuality, they are doing so because they have lost the
vocabulary for Christian discourse and are adopting the language of
culture. No wonder, for example, Anglican
provinces such as the Episcopal Church in the US, the Church of Canada, the Episcopal
Church of Scotland, and lately the Anglican Churches of both Ireland and New
Zealand—all in Western, cultural contexts, are affirming homosexual practice
over against Scripture and the teaching of the Church through the
centuries. No wonder, alternatively,
Anglican Churches not so dominated by Western culture are able to see through this
moral fog and uphold Biblical and orthodox teaching on the issue.

Christians also face the problem of explaining a thicker
ethic to the culture at large that thinks very narrowly about ethics. The public square of Western ethics has a
single, narrow gate through which all are expected to pass if they want to
engage culture. Christians are expected
to unload their thicker ethic as unnecessary baggage and to unhinge the
connections between narratives and virtue, principles and rules, values and
consequences, or between character and actions and ends. They are especially expected to remove any
concrete guidance governing actions that comes from Christian authorities,
especially Scripture. Yet, if we are to
be Biblical Christians, we will have to stand awkwardly in such a public square
with all our baggage, standing out as some country bumpkins who forgot the rule
to offer only a single, universal principle for ethics and who do not give
maximal autonomy to ‘independent’ (which is neither possible nor desirable) reason.
Precisely in the peculiar figure we cut
in the public square, however, whether as individuals or as a unique community,
we will draw attention to a radically different alternative from the anemic,
Western ethic.

We must, however, learn the language of our rich, thicker,
Biblical ethic. To this purpose we now
turn, offering the tables with their language and examples for further
consideration. Note that the information
suggested here is indicative and not intended as exhaustive.